


Anchorite

by ZsforSs



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Asceticism Failure, Church Sex, Exhibitionism, Hand Kink, Historical AU, Incredibly Specific AU, Internalized Homophobia, Look this is a weird church thing ok?, M/M, Masturbation, Religion, Roman Catholicism, Voyeurism, vague time setting tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZsforSs/pseuds/ZsforSs
Summary: He was fed twice a day, and was housed.  He was able to truly devote the whole of his life to prayer and the contemplation of God. His writings on the nature of God were going well...What else could he need than this?And yet.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 21
Kudos: 60





	Anchorite

**Author's Note:**

> An Anchorite/Anchoress is a person who for religious reasons decided to seclude themselves away from society to live a life of religious contemplation. And by seclude I mean they literally shut themselves up in a room- usually attached to a church- and stay in there for the rest of their lives, only interacting with the outside world through a small window in their rooms that allows people to bring them food. Look them up this shit is fascinating.
> 
> Let me know if I need any more tags, I'm worried I under-tagged this one but can't think of any others.
> 
> I know this probably isn't what most of you were expecting me to write next but this idea ate me alive.

Sometimes people would ask him if he got bored. 

It always made Thrawn smile. His days were full of prayer and reflection and his writing.

From his small window into the church he could watch the day's services and receive the Host.

Another window, open to the church's courtyard allowed him to speak to to those curious townsfolk, and anyone who wishes to have his advice. He tried his best to help them all he could and always told them he would pray for them.

Sometimes his list of people to pray for was quite long, but he had more than enough time for them all.

He was fed twice a day, and was housed. He was able to truly devote the whole of his life to prayer and the contemplation of God. His writings on the nature of God were going well...What else could he need than this?

* * *

And yet.

* * *

Brother Eli was a fine young man. Bright eyed and full to bursting with love for God and his fellow man.

He had taken up all manner of odd jobs- any task others shunned Eli would take up with that same kind smile.

He worried he was not good enough, Thrawn knew.

He knew because Eli had told him, whispering his worries through the courtyard window when none were about, as so many others did.

Thrawn had told Eli not to worry, God would know the power of his devotion through his actions.

And how could God not smile upon so sweet a soul as Brother Eli?

* * *

Among his meager possessions was a small pamphlet of prayers. It was just a few pages of scrap paper sewn together until a small book, upon which were scribed a few prayers.

Brother Eli had written it.

He had asked for such a booklet from the priest, intending to transcribe the prayers himself, but the next morning Eli had brought it with his morning meal and asked if it would suit his needs.

(It was usually Eli who brought his meals and tended to his needs.)

His script was beautiful. Thrawn had read the booklet over and over and always the graceful curves of the writing stuck with him. The precision required to write both as small and as clear as Eli had was remarkable.

* * *

Eli had such lovely hands.

* * *

It was his own fault.

Eli would pass him his meals twice a day, and one morning, struck by some urge he did not himself understand he gently took hold of one callused brown hand and ran his thumb along the delicate skin of Eli's wrist before letting go.

Eli had just smiled at him, his face slightly flushed.

* * *

lt became a habit after that, that whenever Eli brought his meals he would briefly take hold of Eli's hand. He slowly learned Eli's skin like he had learned every inch of his cell, all the pauses and intonations of the Mass, the soft curves of the lettering in his prayer pamphlet.

* * *

Eli would often linger after bringing him his evening meal, staying to speak with him about their respective days.

Now he began appearing in the dead of night.

He only came when his sleep was disturbed by dreams, he told Thrawn, and if Thrawn was asleep when he arrived he returned to his bed.

There are many nights Thrawn stayed up late, listening for Eli's quiet footfalls.

Their talks on nights like these were different. They did not speak of their lives now, but of the past and places far away.

Eli was from a merchant family before he took the cloth. In his youth he had traveled with his father far to the East and seen many things.

"Do you regret coming here?" Thrawn asked.

"Sometimes." Eli admitted. "Do you regret going in there?"

_ No. _ he thought, but that was- for the first time since the bishop sealed him in- a lie.

"Not until I met you." he said.

The window is in an awkward position- too tall to sit, too short to stand, but now Eli dropped to his knees, his hands gripped the edges of the window and he pressed his face as far as he could into Thrawn's cell, not far for the walls were very thick.

"I dream about you," Eli said, like this was a confessional. "Of being in there with you, of you being out here with me, and when I wake from those dreams of you still wanting I come here to see you."

Thrawn slid to his knees, his position mirroring Eli's. His hands seemed to move of their own accord, reaching out to thread his fingers into soft dark hair and hold Eli still.

His hands may have been acting on their own, but he knew exactly what he was doing as he kissed his damnation from Eli's lips.

* * *

The next morning when a tired eyed Eli brought his breakfast Thrawn pressed a kiss to Eli's palm and watched a smile light across his face.

* * *

He had condemned them both to Hell and he could not bring himself to care.

* * *

There was a door, heavily barred on both sides and with the bishop's seal on the outside, he had never thought about it so much as he did now.

His writing eluded him. He still watched Mass and prayed- for himself and Eli both- and stared at the door for so long that he thought it might take pity on him and spontaneously combust.

It did not.

Eli squeezed his fingers that night when he brought Thrawn his dinner.

* * *

Now when Eli came to him at night they would both kneel. They would kiss, and then Thrawn would shed his habit, leaving him naked on the floor of his cell.

"Tell me what you dreamed tonight." he would say.

Eli would tell him. Of them together in his bed in the dorms, rutting together as quietly as they could. Of Thrawn sidling up behind Eli while he worked at his writing desk and stroking him through his habit. Of the pair of them tucked into a quiet alcove of the church, Eli on his knees sucking on Thrawn's cock until he spent down Eli's throat.

Thrawn would touch himself while Eli spoke and imagine the things Eli told him. As he did Eli watched him, his eyes black in the dark of night.

When Thrawn finished he would kiss Eli again, cursing the wall between them, and their words would turn to the future.

* * *

His cell felt suffocating. Thrawn lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He deserved this. He had done this to himself, made this godly haven his own personal hell.

He even had his own sweet devil who came and whispered his sins to him at night.

* * *

He never turned Eli away. Though he should have.

If Eli called he came.

* * *

At that morning's Mass Thrawn did not take Communion. After the service the priest went to check on him.

His cell was empty.

The walls were intact, the door still barred and sealed as it had been for years.

But Thrawn was  _ gone _ .

The bishop was summoned, and it was while they waited for him to arrive that anyone noticed Brother Eli was missing as well. He had not been at breakfast that morning.

When the bishop arrived the room was opened. Thrawn's writings sat unfinished on his desk. Everything was in order. His habit was laid nearly out on his bed. It was as if he had been laying there and then just  _ vanished _ .

There was one item missing that no one noticed, a small pamphlet of prayers made of scrap paper.

It was nestled securely in the pocket of a man's coat. The man was curled up with his lover in a haystack, many miles away. They had walked all night before resting here at dawn. Soon it would be time to move again. With luck they would make it to their destination- the closest town with a port- by tomorrow. From there they could go anywhere.

Eli woke, and smiled up at Thrawn.

" Did you ever dream of this?" Thrawn asked.

"This is better than any dream." Eli said, "This is real."


End file.
